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(To last paragraph). Living in Seattle (metro, suburb Kirkland, so-called "Eastside" area), with at this time a super-hot job market, they did choose to select certain areas with an undeniably high standard of living.
High standard of living comes from enormous opportunity. There is no better opportunity that I know of then in the mentioned cities. That is not a knock on the rest of the U.S., just an observation that the coasts are booming. That's where the author(s) chose to look.
I've done some business traveling this year, so I've seen these places lately. Seattle is booming, as is NY. Jersey City and Hoboken are looking remarkably modern. Cranes all over the Hudson side of Manhattan, billion dollars of buildings going up (looks like to me). They are paying coin to smart people working there, in tech and finance, and other industries of course. San Francisco is self-explanatory. Seattle is a booming metropolis in every sense of the phrase. A buddy and I went downtown yesterday to what they call "SLU" or South Lake Union, where Amazon's campus is (and Gates Foundation, and much more), and it's turned from scummy 15-20 years ago to modern buildings and at least taking a shot at controlling traffic. I think that's a lost cause, but whatever. Point being, business is good these days. Crazy good, in fact. It's a buyer's market in my business, at-least.
I haven't been to Boston lately, but a peer moved from Cambridge to Seattle couple years ago. She was rather lucid that business is booming there, too. Easy to believe.
So...let us say if one wants to live a Middle Class lifestyle in Seattle. Let's say either a nice house, about 2K square feet, in either Lower Queen Anne or Bellevue. The former is Seattle proper, not far from SLU, the latter is Eastside. Median home price in Lower Queen Anne per Zillow is about $750K, up 17.7% YoY, and Bellevue about $940K, similar rise YoY. Wow.
Now: realistically, to find a nice house in either place, with good schools and etc, and raise two kids, will run you $900-1.1M. Yep. Do the math on that mortgage. Sales tax is 10%, they find ways to pimp you on everything they can considering there is no state income tax.
$300K, or two good tech salaries, is a great starting place to lead a "good" (subjectively) lifestyle with your kids in "good" schools (like Bellevue High), activities which cause horrific amounts of money, nannies, au pair, day care, all that crap that comes along with raising kids these days. Vacations, other recreation like boats and cars? Yeah, that money goes fast. Ask me how I know, and I'm single and squirrel a LOT of dough away (and live in Kirkland, Eastide, with a house like that described above).
Can it be done on less? Hayall yes! You can live in Renton (working class area) in a three bedroom condo with carport, one car, one person working and pulling in $65K, wife (or husband I guess) taking care of several children. Tons do it. Do they live well in places like the above: not really. Not like the people who actually have time for recreation and enjoying life with vacations, nannies, all that I mentioned and etc.
Food for thought, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. It's a quite subjective thing.
I expect that the millions of people who live happy prosperous lives in places like Indianapolis, Houston, Phoenix, Boise, Knoxville, and the like would disagree with your implied assumption that life is only worth living in one of the "name brand" cities which seem to be NYC, San Fran, LA, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Toronto, or Vancouver (and maybe one or two others).
And many millions more families live happy prosperous lives and raise children on less than $150K a year in NYC, San Fran, LA, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver. Lives without nannies, boats, private schools, luxury cars, fancy restaurants and expensive family vacations. Lives with cable TV, XBox, public schools, home cooking and vacations around their back yard pool and the beach and local amusement parks.
For some reason people equate lving in NYC with the lifestyle of a hedge fund manager living in a multi million dollar condo. The median family income for NYC residents is $55k per year, with 80% of NYC families earning less than $115K per year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by turf3
I expect that the millions of people who live happy prosperous lives in places like Indianapolis, Houston, Phoenix, Boise, Knoxville, and the like would disagree with your implied assumption that life is only worth living in one of the "name brand" cities which seem to be NYC, San Fran, LA, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Toronto, or Vancouver (and maybe one or two others).
Normal liberal gibberish. That means no country in the world has a middle class. Anywhere. Similar to the arbitrary "poverty level" calculation we hear about all the time.
What the hell does this have to do with liberalism? Why compelled have to bring this political crap into everything these days?
I wouldn't want to raise kids on less than $100k combined income, but $300k is not necessary most places.
Because people with this mind set don't even have a clue what the world liberal means. In their minds it's a synonym of ignorant. Pretty much the same as liberals view them.
And $300K family income is not necessary anywhere in the US to have a good life. Anyone breaking even on $300K a year is throwing away at least $50K to $100K of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NDak15
What the hell does this have to do with liberalism? Why compelled have to bring this political crap into everything these days?
I wouldn't want to raise kids on less than $100k combined income, but $300k is not necessary most places.
When I was in high school, my dad made $5k a year, mom stayed home. Our middle-class lifestyle was just fine, enough to send me to college.
I do not see any statistics that would support a claim that the price of anything has gone up by a multiple of 60x. Standard purchasing power charts show that number from 1955 to be 9x, my dad's wage being $45k in today's dollars.
What people need for a middle class lifestyle is something very different from what people have been persuaded to want and feel entitled to.
Depends where you live. We live in NW Indiana where COL is low, but DH works in nearby Chicago (35 miles away) where wages are higher. We live very comfortably with 2 kids, new home that’s only 2 yrs old, go on several vacations a year and still can save for kids college and retirement. We make nowhere near $300k!
Sweet Jeebus, what is the obsession with private schools? No wonder there is no money, if you're going to shell out 20-40k a year for that.
No kidding. I used to post on another message board and this guy whined how he didn't have money. Then he explained how he had a mortgage, 2 car payments, and sent it his kids to private school.
Gee, it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out what went wrong with his finances.
The irony ofcourse is that all these folks sending their kids to private school, did perfectly fine in public school. If you're sacrificing a strong retirement to send your kids to private school, something is wrong.
$20-40K a year for K-12 private education PLUS private tutors PLUS a college fund? Some people are crazy.
There is yet another interaction between house and private school:
In some areas the parents are faced with a choice of:
a) selecting a $1.5 Million house in a (relatively) affordable neighborhood with mediocre public schools knowing full-well they must then pay for private school tuition; or
b) selecting a $3 Million house in a (relatively) pricey neighborhood with good public schools knowing they won't pay private school tuition.
Here's an example.
Here's house "A" in Campbell, CA. Campbell is a suburban town near San Jose, CA. Campbell is most definitely not a "desirable area." It has mediocre public schools. The parents would almost surely send their kids to private school. Here's a $1.5 Million house:
Here's house "B" in nearby Palo Alto, CA. Palo Alto is considered highly desirable, but not top of the pecking order (Atherton, Woodside, Los Altos Hills, etc). Palo Alto has very good schools and the parents would most likely send their kids to public school. Here's a $3.2 Million house.
Wow, I'm glad I don't face those kinds of prices. In the North Shore just north of Chicago, which is the best part of a name brand city, the first house would be half a million (off the shore by a few miles) and the second would be a million.
My parents faced the same calculus 50 years ago - they stayed in their $17,000 house in Cleveland and put me through private school instead of moving to a $50,000 house they couldn't afford in a nice suburb. But private school (the best in the area) then cost just over $1000 a year.
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